Saturday, February 25, 2012

Berk on a Bike

Last week we went for a walk on Sunday with friends. We had to walk up a hill for about 100 yards. It felt like 100 miles. I am unfit. There is no way round it. There is beginning to be no way round me either. I'd make a useful barricade in a passageway. Although I am half a stone lighter than this time last year I am half a stone heavier than I was in the summer. This and that being the case I decided it was time to unleash the bike!

It has to be at least a year since I last sat upon it's gel filled saddle. And the bike appears to have recovered. Last time it was out of it's storage cupboard I fitted some nice new tyres so it was about time I gave them a spin. So I pumped them up to within an inch, or possibly a psi, of their lives and donned my helmet and backpack.

Off I went, scything through the estate as though knife through butter. Frozen butter, I would judge from the speed. At one point I even had to change up a gear because I almost went quite fast. That didn't last long and I changed back down again to keep pace with a family of tortoises.

I did however reach my destination. The Library. Unfortunately I found the book I wanted rather too quickly so didn't have as much time as I would have liked for a rest. Back aboard Dobbin, (I don't know a suitable name for a bike), and returned to the bosom of my family. Well the bosom of The Magnificent M but let's not dwell there. That was very nearly a round trip of possibly the best part of the majority of a large bit of a mile!

The bike did well, the rider less so. It still confirms my opinion I am unfit. Except now I know that as well as being unfit to stand and move my legs, I'm also too unfit to sit down and move my legs. Excellent!

It is not that many years, about 6, that I cycled from London to the South Coast near Brighton with a mate. I won't be doing that next weekend but, we have this plan for another trip. We want to go to France and cycle the route that Henry V troops took for Agincourt. So that's Honfleur, to the Battlefield, we will then give the famous speech as in Shakespeare's play, "St Crispin's Day" etc, and then back to the coast.

UPDATE - The car saga. The car hasn't been lost. It is still at the Police Pound. They decided they couldn't tell the insurance company that under the Data Protection Act because the insurance company had phrased the question in such a way that some of my friends personal information, her address, would have to be given across. That would be the address she lives at. The address that the insurance company hold. Now that we have had a word with Her Majesty's Constabulary it should now reach it's natural conclusion of scrappage and pay out. And yet........